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ST. PAUL - Taylor Hall limped into Minnesota on Saturday, still in some discomfort after sliding into the end boards Friday in St. Louis and unsure if he’ll be good to go Sunday against the Wild.

You know who else has a sore leg? Cal Clutterbuck.

The hard-hitting Wild winger has missed four games and counting with a thigh injury since Hall caught him low, and nowhere near the puck, two weeks ago in Edmonton.

So the Oilers star probably isn’t in for much sympathy when he arrives at the Xcel Energy Center.

In fact, he’s probably in for a bit of a rough ride, but he’d like the chance to take it nonetheless.

“I hope I can play,” said the 21-year-old, who’d only been back from his two-game suspension for five periods before the unfortunate tumble. “I hope that on Sunday it’s good.”

If he plays, Hall doesn’t think it’ll get crazy out there. Not really crazy, anyway.

“I don’t expect any retribution or anything,” he said. “They play hard as a team and they’re obviously missing him as a player. I expect to just go out and probably get bumped around a couple of times, but I don’t expect anything huge. I’m not expecting to fight or anything.”

Hall is used to opponents playing him tough, it’s been happening since he was about 10. He’s just never been the villain before. This would be new.

“It’s kind of a different situation, I have a target on my back for a different reason,” he said. “I play hard and it’s probably not going to be the first time in my career that I’m the target of another team because of hitting someone or whatever. I’ll just try and keep my head up and stay out of the scrums and stuff after the whistles, just go back to the bench.”

He doesn’t mind being an enemy, though. After all, nobody likes a player who’s liked by everyone.

“You don’t want to be that guy who’s talking to everyone in the face-off, always trying to make buddies out there. You play hard and things happen out there. It’s something you have to get used to.”

Separated by two points in the standings, and with neither side in the top eight, Oilers coach Ralph Krueger expects the Wild and Oilers to stick to business.

“For us more than anything it’s just about points,” he said. “We’re in a lot of pain after (blowing) the 2-0 lead we had (in St. Louis). You can’t think of anything personal right now.

“The way this conference is, you need points. Anything distracting you from the task at hand is dangerous in this short season. We need to scrap out points in these next games really badly.”

So does Minnesota. That alone, said Minnesota coach Mike Yeo, will be enough to make things hot and heavy no matter who’s in or who’s out or what happened last game. But the Hall-Clutterbuck fallout certainly won’t hurt the atmosphere.

“Both teams, the temperature will be high just because there’s a lot at stake and it’s a rivalry game to begin with,” said Yeo. “We’ve played them enough times and seem to have enough of these incidents that just continue to fuel the fire.

“They’re heated games when we play against each other and I would expect the same.”

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ROBERT.TYCHKOWSKI@Sunmedia.ca

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